Disregarding the Obvious
by Norver
Summary: Danny knew several facts about life, he could only rely on himself, and his sister. Teachers were no help, Mom and Dad were too busy. When the accident happened he did what he knew was best, keep it to himself. AU traumatized!Danny, Neglected!Danny. Danny keeps the secret to himself and is reluctant to play hero. When he meets another like himself, well he finds a kindred spirit.
1. Chapter 1

When Danny was three his parents forgot him at home during Jazz's piano recital, he learned that he didn't need someone to tuck him in at night.

When Danny was four, they forgot to hire a babysitter when they went out of town for Jazmine's award ceremony, Danny learned the easiest thing to make to eat was cereal.

When he was five, he started school, they forgot to pick both him and Jazz up from school frequently, they learned together the fastest ways to get home.

When he was six he learned it best to not ask them for help with homework, dad would just somehow turn it into a tangent about ghosts and mom would turn it into a lecture on listening in school better and going back to the lab to continue their experiments, in the end he went to Jazz who was more than happy to help him.

When he was seven, it was more times than not that their parents would forget dinner or dishes or laundry, so Jazz and him learned through trial and error how to do the laundry, how to make something other than cereal, and the best way to not break the dishes.

When he was eight and having trouble with bullies in school, it was Jazz who put a bandage on the hurts and wiped his tears away as their parents continued to be in the lab for three days in a row.

When he was ten he learned how best to cheer Jazz up when mom and dad forgot her birthday again, a trip to the library and ice cream afterwards. It made her happy and turned into a lecture on her favorite subjects… but it made her smile so it made Danny smile as well.

Now don't get him wrong, his parents loved them both, they just were busy. They were busy and had important work to do, that's why they were always down in the lab. They were adults and had responsibilities and sometimes that meant they knew Jazz and Danny could take care of themselves just fine, at least that's what Jazz explained to him whenever he asked.

Relying on himself and Jazz was all he ever knew, his parents never helped him with school work, made meals, or helped him with his problems. His teachers never cared enough to stop Dash from bullying him. And the one time he tried to open up to his friends at school they just took it on a rant about their family and their problems and how he should be happy his parents let him do whatever he wants.

It was Jazz that helped him start early on his dreams for Nasa. Checking out books on stars and constellations, watching the discovery channel with him about space and all the interesting facts currently known about it, sat him down and explained that to get to Nasa you had to be good at specific things because being interested in constellations wasn't going to get him there so here's a few mathematics books and an introduction to physics.

Admittedly both were very hard for him to grasp, it didn't come easy like academics did for Jazz, but she said that it didn't matter and that if he worked hard at it, one day he could be an astronaut. She lectured him about the importance of good grades so he can get into a good college so he could work for Nasa, which made a bit more sense why she was always nagging him about doing better in school.

So long story short, fourteen year old Danny knew that the only other person he could rely on was Jazz, and even then she was busy herself, doing alot of extra work and afterschool stuff, and getting looking towards her future of being a phycologist. So he tried his best to not bother her too much, except with things she found important for him, like help on homework. She never minded if he asked for help on that so long as he didn't expect her to do it for him.

Though he knew this was not normal, he… he couldn't go to her for this. Dad and mom wanted the lab cleaned up a bit after their project didn't work, so he dawned his hazmat suit, the one he tore the logo from, and took his time picking up the loose tools and such, they even left some on the inside of the portal thing they were making.

It only took a trip and a fall and a button being pressed before a shock went through him followed by excruciating pain, it was horrible, like molten lava being dumped on him from the inside out before freezing over into a cold so frigid it felt burning. It felt like he was being torn up from the inside and being shredded, and time seemed to stretch on and on until it didn't.

He didn't even realize he passed out until he woke up on the cold floor, strangely he didn't feel the cold that much, strange since he knew the lab was much colder than any other place in the house. The pain was still there with a buzzing in the back of his head as he stumbled to the small bathroom down in the basement, eyes locking onto the strange sight in the mirror.

White hair, green eyes, and his suit inverted. Oh fuck. What was this? What even was this? What happened? He- he was just cleaning up and then? He lost his footing, almost slamming into the sink as he looked down finding a leg missing, no no he still felt it, what was this?! Body flickering out of sight once or twice, he spun back to the room, looking over the invention his parents made.

A portal to the ghost world… did he somehow get ghost powers from it?

It was several hours later after he unplugged the portal and hit the off switch that he stumbled his way back to his room, hair back to black, eyes their normal blue, and pain still burning in his chest. The thought of telling anyone never crossed his mind. How can he get ghost powers if he's not a ghost. Well he's not a full ghost, he still looks human, he's breathing and things hurt so that must mean he's not a ghost because if he was a ghost then that would mean…. That would mean… no no no no no.

He shoved that thought to the back of his head, burying it in the back of his mind, warding off the budding hysteria. Ha, nope. Homework? Homework sounds good. Just homework and just ignore when your hand disappears and the pencil falls through, ha see nothing wrong, nothing amiss. Just… just another normal day.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't stop himself to think about it often, because if he did the thought that he he… he _**died**_ would eat him. The memory of it already ate at him, the stress tore at him. Ha he thought it was stressful before. Now now…. He's half ghost or something and and… his parents are ghost hunters you know? And they, they never really softened any words for their kids so he _knows _exactly what they thought about ghosts.

What they would _do_ if they got their hands on a ghost. A shiver raked down his spine at the jovial glimmer in his father's eyes when he spoke of taking a ghost apart molecule by molecule. The glee his mother expressed when one of their _very painful _inventions turned out working.

The panic when his powers start acting up when they are anywhere near him, mean he sinks into the floor, an appendage going invisible, he, he loves his parents he swears but… but now he can't help the cold dread at being in the room with them when they go on and on about ghosts, the only thing they talk about of a daily basis.

The cold ball of fear when they bring their inventions anywhere close to him. The manic glee when they describe what they do. He loves them, he swears he does, they're his family but life had beat the optimism out of him at a young age and he knows what would happen if they found out. Oh he knows too well and it fills his nightmares at night, makes him shake until he thinks he'll shake himself apart at the seams.

So he… for lack of a better word, trains. He can't go invisible or go through things by accident. He can't let anyone know about this. He can't let anyone find out. No one. So learning control was a necessity. Learning how to make his hair white and eyes greens and make his inverted hazard suit appear in the aptly named 'ghost form' was… well necessary.

He… he knew that if he ever ended up going to the hospital or anything that all that ectoplasm in him would be seen, they'd see he's different, they'd see him as an anomaly and be shipped off somewhere and maybe… maybe dissected like his parents want to do.

He dreams of that too sometimes. Sometimes they know it's him, sometimes they just think he's another ghost, they just have him strapped down in the basement and talk about the best way to cut him open and then- then they bring out the sharp, oh so sharp knives and… and..and…

Shooting up in a cold sweat, Danny threw himself over the edge of the bed to retch into the trash can set aside for instances like god, oh god. His mind still whirring on the imagery of his mind, mixing the memory of the excruciating pain from the accident with the imaginary betrayal of his parents. Stomach in knots and breath shallow, the nightmare kept a firm grasp on him. So many sleepless nights like this.

It was in the time of his recovering that he froze a moment before transforming to his other self, quickly throwing himself at the shadow in his room, through the wall and outside into the night. Slamming the ghost to the ground, he bounced up into the sky away from him, "Skulker, bit early this week…"

The hulking ghost of a hunter brushed himself off and sent a slanted grin towards him, "Never too early to go after your pelt whelp!" He shot a net up into the sky from his gauntlet, easy enough for Danny to dodge before making a nose dive to the ground, landing silently on the pavement, "... It's late, this is the second time this week, I really don't want to waste the energy fighting right now man. I like these play dates and all but…"

With a woosh and dodge, Danny avoided the fist aimed at his head, retaliating with flares of ecto energy radiating from his hands, beams flashing at the hunter as Skulker fired a series of darts at him. "O-kay guess the hard way," The half ghost muttered, preparing himself for a rough fight.

It was an hour later that an exhausted Danny returned to bed, too tired to dream and mind about his injuries too much. Skulker seemed to take it easy on him tonight, he giggled lightly at the thought of Skulker doing it on purpose.

After all the few ghosts that manage to get into Amity from the Ghost Zone all seemed to clue in on some of his feelings… Like if he has a nightmare when Skulker is around he usually forces Danny into a fight that's more like a spar of trading blows before leaving, none too much worse for wear. Hell Danny would even admit that he looked forward to it, one of the fews things he looked forward to nowadays between the ever constant paranoia of having his secret found out, and the ever present stress of keeping up on school with his bouts of insomnia and nightmares...


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes they realize how much time has gone by without them realizing how much they missed of their kid's lives and when that happens Danny's parents panic and they take their kids camping for a day, or go to the movies, and then the next day they're back in the lab. This time there's apparently a reunion for their college in Wisconsin and they think it's a great idea to bring the whole family for a few days.

It was cramped and uncomfortable squashed next to Jazz as they both read their respective books, Jazz and her psychology books, and himself with an old college astronomy book that had great charts with constellations. He knew later Jazz would force him to go through the other books she got for him, she even had a few review tests on the stuff she got from a website that she would have him do.

Cramp, uncomfortable and the fact that a lot of things in this RV could hurt him. Terribly. The few times he managed to have one of the automatic defenses of their parents' weapons turn on was not something he liked to think about. The burning, the sharp pain that didn't heal quick like most other things when he's in his ghost form.

It made him nervously look about the very metallic RV that was very unwelcoming in its clinical lab like visage. It reminded him of his nightmares of what would happen if his parents found out. Just being cramped in this thing was making ice trail down his spine and a knot to form in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't make himself eat when they stopped with how his stomach flipped whenever they so much as looked at him too long.

Jazz noticed but with a few excuses, it was easy to make her believe he was nervous about traveling out of state. When did he get so good at lying? When did he get so good at being small and forgettable with his parents? A few mumbled words of a shy teen and they just look the other way and focus on Jazz.

At one point it may have made him angry but right now with the fear pressing behind his lungs, he couldn't help but be grateful that she could easily get lost in talking about her interests. Then again he wasn't as smart as her, as quick to pick things up like her, caught onto concepts easy like her. So yeah his parents would put a lot of their focus on their oldest because she was great and destined for a great college and doing something with her life, a genius one could say. Him? So long as his grades were up to par than they wouldn't mind so much, so long as he got high B's in school and did his homework on time then it wasn't worth noticing.

He wasn't Jazz and they were content to let him be if he kept up on everything they expected of him, and they expected nothing more. He didn't know how to feel about it, it rolled around in his head and dropped to his stomach like a nest of rattled bees, neither good nor bad or rather both good and bad. Good that he could fly under the radar, bad because… well he could never stop the disappointment that they never wanted him to try better, or or, like expected anything better of him, and the thought just, well not really hurt but it ached like an old wound that's been there for a while.

They've been driving for a long time already,enough that both he and Jazz had managed to get all their homework done already and now were just reading their respective books, sparing a few glances towards their parents once in a while, Jazz in idle interest, and Danny in disguised wariness.

Apparently Jack was attacked by some ghost birds a couple days ago, the first his parents ever really encountered a ghost. Danny wasn't even sure if he was telling the truth because this is the same man that would answer the door screaming 'GHOST' and accost whomever would be unlucky enough to be at the other side.

He could have just aggravated a normal bird and got a few scratches, but he couldn't really say, he was out at the library with Jazz after their parents were being exceedingly loud down in the lab, probably another explosion of some sort. Then again Danny doesn't really go out of his way to pick fights with ghosts unless they accost him or someone around him. He had more things to focus on like his school work, and not being obvious with his parents going 'Oh hey! Yeah I'm definitely a ghost, definitely something wrong here!' or something like that.

It was a relief when they arrived at the giant castle that his parent's old friend lived in. Finally getting out of the clinical cramped RV and being able to get some more space between him and his parents even if he knew it was more of a mental strain than anything dangerous. It's not like he was going to accidentally phase through the thing or go invisible, its been three months since the accident and he could pride himself a little in that he could now fully control _that_ much at least. Still it made the clawing in his throat ease up a bit.

Jack herded his family up the steps towards the person standing in the shadows, a finely dressed man with silver hair and impeccable form stepped closer to them, a pleasant smile on his sharp features as he gestured,"Jack…. And Maddie! What a pleasure to see you, please come in!" He gracefully led Maddie and her children in, hiding a sharp grin of satisfaction of closing the door on the oaf of a man that ruined his life.

It had been years since he saw her and she still looked as stunning as she did during their college days, her lovely eyes, to her beautiful hair. Vlad smiled internally at the visage before glancing towards the others, her daughter definitely took after her mother. Hair the same shade and body type wise, she was a spitting image of her, barely any Jack in her at all, along with her delicate body language of politeness and etiquette that Jack couldn't replicate even if his life depended on it. Good to see at least the best of Maddie was shown through her offspring.

He almost missed the younger one, which was strange, he prided himself on being ever observant. He was a businessman, he was trained to look for any weaknesses that presented themselves and that meant being hyper vigilant of the people he would meet with. He was also a halfa and had many enemies and a honed sense of taking in sights and analyzing them. To…. overlook someone was not something natural to him.

Focusing on the youngest he took in the dark hair and blue eyes, Jack's coloring sadly, but that's where the similarities ended. No he definitely took more after his mother with his body build, he was such a small boy, slight with some muscle. Face not as hard and square like his father, more round and smooth, eyes the same shape as Maddie and nose small and button like. The boy had a slouch and had a way of deflecting attention almost instinctively off of him, nothing like the confidence exuded off of his parents nor sibling. Vlad had no idea what to make of it.

The boy was so easy to overlook that it had every instinct in him going off stating that something was off. Not dangerous but… something to look after. How two confident and intelligent people could have made someone so quiet in aura… hmm.


End file.
